Harvey’s savage waters

The waters brought by Hurricane Harvey swallow the great city of Houston and with it the southeast swath of the great state of Texas with no pity and what feels like no end. Neighborhoods sunk, and downtown, too; homes hurled off their foundations. Areas on higher ground turned to islands in between inundated zones, isolating even the headquarters of the Red Cross as its valiant staff attempted to set up relief centers around the region. Every freeway in the fourth-largest metropolis in the nation drowned, with streets turned to swift-current rivers. A major hospital evacuated for want of electric power.

And anywhere a bayou had burst its banks: Houstonians on their rooftops, drenched and awaiting rescue, taking their pleas to social media when failing to get through to official emergency service lines (“hoping for a friendly neighbor with a boat”).

Biblical catastrophe has besieged a vital corner of 21st century America, wreaking devastation that Federal Emergency Management Agency administrator Brock Long already asserts will demand years of recovery efforts.

In the immediate crisis, with rain still falling by the foot, America responds with heroism and heart, not least the civilians who responded to local officials’ calls to pilot kayaks, rafts, canoes, anything that could serve to pluck the stranded to safety before sundown Sunday.

Joining 3,000 guardsmen and women called in by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott are 104 New York Air Guard personnel summoned by Gov. Cuomo, equipped with rescue planes and boats. The Border Patrol and Coast Guard deployed helicopters and pilots. The spirit of collective aid must stay strong even as the immediate crisis ebbs — and well into the painstaking recovery. Houston’s trauma is the nation’s to help heal. New York, which received but a taste of Houston’s horror in the single night of Hurricane Sandy’s storm surge, weeps for Texas while praying for the speediest possible recovery.